F1 | McLaren: Piastri built the victory by disobeying the pit wall

There is no arguing about McLaren’s world form. Since last May it has become clear that the MCL38 is the benchmark for all opponents, but for many reasons Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have capitalized less than the pure performance of the car would have allowed them to do over the summer.

Today in Baku the team led by Andrea Stella began to plant the first flag, taking the lead in the Constructors’ World Championship. The overtaking of Red Bull had been announced for some time, there is nothing surprising, but the team needed to put everything down in black and white.

Compared to other days in which the McLaren post-race was characterized by a bittersweet taste, at the end of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix there were big smiles, including that of Lando Norris. Above all, however, Piastri’s magnificent race stood out, a mix of performance, strategy and cold blood that you can expect from seasoned champions. Instead, before Baku Oscar had competed in 37 Grand Prix in the space of a year and a half, eighteen very intense months for a boy who made his debut in Formula 1 at 22 years old.

There were also those who turned up their noses a bit when Oscar concluded his first season in Formula 1 last year by obtaining half the points of Norris. Today it is like this, judgments arrive quickly, without analytical basis and with little knowledge of the subject, even within the paddock. They even came to question the choice of McLaren to leave Daniel Ricciardo at home (on full salary) for a guy who, after all, was ‘just okay’ and little more.

The reality is that in a year and a half since the Melbourne 2023 debut, McLaren has had confirmation of having a top driver in house, who (let it be clear) is very far from having completed his growth path. What we saw today in the 51 laps of Baku is however a sample of absolute value, cold in the first part of the race, ruthless in the attack on Leclerc with an overtaking that has a good chance of becoming the one of the year and a subsequent defense worthy of the best Fernando Alonso.

“If I hadn’t tried to overtake Charles I wouldn’t be here with the winner’s cup,” Piastri said. It may seem like a banal statement, but at McLaren the strategy was to put pressure on Leclerc’s Ferrari while waiting for a drop in performance.

“Already in the first stint I saw Charles moving away – Piastri explained – so I ignored what the engineer had told me, because if Ferrari had been able to finish the race I would have been mocked, the idea of ​​finishing second was not exciting. But I knew I had only one opportunity, I would not have had a second, it was a high-risk maneuver and I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to make the corner!”.

Oscar’s single-seater supported him well, but a tiny slip-up would have been enough to lose the lead to Leclerc, who remained in the mirrors of the number 81 McLaren for thirty laps. The technical goodness of the car has been known for some time, but on several occasions something was missing, between strategies, choice of compounds, driver slip-ups and other small but crucial details. Today everything went in the best possible way, allowing Piastri to take the stage with considerable added value, including the personality needed to go even beyond the team’s indications.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL38, makes his pit stop

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Piastri received a small but important help from Norris, hired for a lap as a ‘stopper’ on Sergio Perez, who was very close to undercutting Oscar. Lando did his job admirably, and Piastri, after the pit stop, came out just ahead of the Red Bull. Norris also smiled in the end. Given how things had gone after qualifying, finishing with a ‘+3 points’ on Verstappen was not at all a given. The outcome of the stage could have been different, both positively and negatively, but we must also put on the table the umpteenth confirmation that the McLaren adapts to every type of track and compound. All of this gives us hope ahead of Singapore.